Category Archives: East Asia

Bloomberg has put together a well reported and extensive look at what appears to have been a 5-year long game of cat and mouse-hack and evade with servers containing some of the U.S. military’s most sensitive and highly-coveted technology.

If F-22’s and F-35’s start dropping out of the sky during the Asian apocalypse in the Taiwan Strait, now you know why.

Beginning at least as early as 2007, Chinese computer spies raided the databanks of almost every major U.S. defense contractor and made off with some of the country’s most closely guarded technological secrets, according to two former Pentagon officials who asked not to be named because damage assessments of the incidents remain classified.

Truly infuriating is that some managers at key defense contractors, operating under lax government supervision, basically decided to simply accept the presence of Chinese hackers in their systems.

My feeling is that if an attacker has been in your environment for years, your data is gone,” Wallisch wrote in an e-mail to a colleague in December 2010, a few weeks before HBGary itself was hacked and the record stops.

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South Korea ranks second in the OECD for nations that are a huffin’ and a puffin’. And before the house gets blown down the government and the business community are pushing some of the world’s toughest measures to curb the country’s tobacco obsession. But not with higher taxes.

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BUSAN, South Korea — With nearly 45 percent of the male population being admitted smokers, it’s hard to walk a few steps down the sidewalk in South Korea without passing through a cloud of second-hand smoke. Second only to Greece in the thirty-four OECD nations, even Korean kids are smoking in record numbers, with 17 percent of teenage males puffing it up after class.

With elected officials paralyzed by the fear of raising cigarette taxes (currently the lowest in the OECD) on such a large slice of the electorate, the business community, oddly enough, is now leading the charge to cut smoking —in a big way.

How about missing out on that next big promotion at the office because you’re a smoker?

South Korean conglomerate, the Woongjin Group, not only requires new employees to sign a non-smoking pledge, but smoking caused some employees to get passed over for a recent round of pay raises in February.

“The announcements were made prior to the promotion process, so there weren’t any complaints from those who didn’t get a promotion,” a Woongjin Group spokeswoman told AFP.

To make sure that employees are abiding by their pledge, Woongjin conducts random hair and urine tests at irregular intervals to keep staff at their word.

South Korea’s largest employer, Samsung Electronics, is also cracking down on its nicotine nine-to-fivers. After a policy encouraging employees to sign up for non-smoking programs was met with mixed results, the firm is now considering tougher restrictions in line with Woongjin.

A company spokesman for the Device Solutions division, which makes up roughly 30,000 of Samsung’s 101,970 employees, says the electronics giant views its efforts as a dose of tough love, saying that Samsung “considers employees as the company’s most valuable asset, and their health and well-being are a top priority.”

That’s the “love,” what about the “tough?”

“Certain consequences for smokers are under consideration. They haven’t been finalized nor enforced,” he said, adding that smoking could soon be a factor affecting promotion prospects.

The Government’s Dilemma

The central government is doing what it can while avoiding Korea’s third-rail of politics, the “sin tax.” Few things more quickly kill a political career here than raising taxes on Korean’s beloved cigarettes and alcohol. And the evidence shows that aside of costing elected officials their jobs, it does little to curb smoking anyway.

The last time the government raised taxes on cigarettes was in 2004 by 354 won (30 cents) when 52 percent of the male population was smoking. The rate dropped a paltry seven points to 45 percent by 2007, but then increased the three subsequent years hitting 48.3% in 2010 before leveling off back at the current 45%.

For the government, South Korea’s smoking problem is unique, and highly troubling in one very significant way: With the world’s lowest birthrate it literally needs what few taxpayers it will have in the future to stay alive as long as possible into the future.

In response to this serious concern, the Seoul city government last year banned smoking near bus stops and around schools as well as in parks and plazas. Offenders caught in those areas face a stiff 100,000 won fine ($85USD) for lighting up.

Song Yo-sang, a city manager, says that the program has been successful.

“We caught 240 cases last year at main plazas and parks and this year, our 23 officers are going to random spots and catching about three to five smokers every day.”

That takes care of the smokers stupid enough to light up in restricted areas, but what about the thousands of others out there puffing it up?

Seoul plans to make 21 percent of its total area a non-smoking zone by 2014. It is also considering a blanket ban on smoking in all public areas except for scattered designated spots where smokers can light up.

Of course, not everyone welcomes the government and business taking a tough new stance.

“Conducting (hair and urine) tests and constantly pressuring employees to quit smoking even after work clearly violates human rights,” said Hong Sung-Yong, director of the Korea Smokers Association.

The general public and even smokers themselves, apparently don’t agree with Hong.

A survey by the Seoul government last year of 1,786 people found 69 percent agreed with tougher legislation. Among the respondents 1,092 identified themselves as smokers.

Regardless, Hong still feels that the country is being over zealous with its new tactics to curb smoking.

“People shouldn’t make smokers look like barbarians when smoking is legal and we pay the rightful amount of taxes,” he said. “Prohibiting smoking is like pushing smokers off the brink and merely shows that they don’t care at all about smokers’ rights.”

Smoker’s rights are of less concern than their wrongs to a government that must maintain a tax base as well as cut costs on treating cancer patients in a highly subsidized healthcare system.

Perhaps New Zealand has the answer. The government there has set a goal to reduce smoking to 5 percent of the population by 2020. And they are not afraid to tax smokers into healthy living.

“Tax is about the most effective measure of reducing smoking and encouraging smokers to quit that we’ve got,” says professor Richard Edwards of the Department of Public Health at University of Otago.

A New Zealand government-sponsored study found that if the price of cigarettes was increased to $40USD a pack by 2025, combined with other ambitious policies, New Zealand would still fail in becoming smoke-free.

Who knows how researchers figure this stuff out, but their final conclusion, and the proposal they put forth, was that the government would have to institute a pricing plan to increase the cost of cigarettes to $80USD per pack by 2020 with prices “increasing exponentially after that.”

For smokers this is pretty scary stuff, I suppose. This whole scenario is all the more frightening when considering that there is nothing like a good smoke after stringing up your local politicians following a good riot.

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On April 24th, around 5000 passengers were stuck at Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport due to thick fog. To ease the people’s stress while waiting to take off, the airport dispatched a cheerleading team to the main terminal. When I first saw the pics I figured it had to be Japan, but no, this is Chinese ingenuity.

Even more bizarre is that if you currently have one of these breeds of dogs, it will be confiscated and put to death. Interestingly, I didn’t know that China, along with its One Child Policy, also has a One Dog Policy.

At any rate, as of Friday, 5,000 people have signed an online petition to stop the absurdity and locals in Harbin have been out in force as seen in the photo below. Change.org has the petition in English and Chinese if you want to get involved.

It reads:

To Whom It May Concern, 致有關人士

We the undersigned urge you not to enforce the upcoming policy where dogs over a certain height will have to be given up by their owners. Dog owners face the unenviable task of giving up their beloved pets simply because they aren’t an acceptable size.

This policy is cruel, heartless and ineffective, and paints the government in a very poor light. We ask that you let the larger dogs live out their lives naturally with their owners.

Protests in Harbin have taken place where owners cried publicly to show how hurt and upset they are about this and people around the world want this policy to be overturned. While the Harbin government is busy with a large full-media campaign intended for Harbin’s 2012 visits to its international sister cities to mark the official launch of Harbin’s tourism promotion campaign, bringing a law in to ban specific breeds does not promote Harbin’s tolerance for pet owners very well to the rest of the world. Please cancel the height restrictions on dogs in Harbin.

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I think it is safe to say that Harbin needs a petition recalling idiot legislators.

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It’s no secret that Japan’s economy has been in the slow lane for a long spell — GDP has grown over the last decade at an average annual rate of only 0.6%.

Well, according to a Japanese think tank, they better get there たわごと together.

The 21st Century Public Policy Institute is predicting that South Korea will pass Japan in gross domestic product per capita around 2030 and that Japan could even be dropped from the category of “developed countries” around that time.

The report blames the coming fall on low Japanese birth rates. The institute assumes the population will drop to 116.6 million in 2030 from 128.1 million in 2010.

That is apparently the Japanese point of Apocalypse…

“A declining population and the world’s fastest aging society will combine to have significant effects on the economy,” the report says. “Unless something is done, we are afraid Japan will fall out of the league of advanced nations and again become a tiny country in the Far East.”

Read the rest here, if you want, but one thing that comes off as odd: South Korea too has about the same low birth rates and aging population, but the group picks them to pass Japan by 2030 in GDP per capita. OK, I could see that with Korea’s economy growing at about about 3-4%. Why not?

The weird part is that Korea is currently ranked 24th in GDP per capita and Japan is ranked 20th. The report predicts that Korea will rise to 15th and Japan will sink to 21st –which is only a one spot drop.

That doesn’t sound so bad, eh? Or could this simply could be a clever intellectual snub of their rival?

Following the logic here, Korea being 6 spots ahead rather than 4 spots behind at present is the same as being “a tiny country in the Far East?”

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With the successful launch of their spanking new three-stage missile, India has put both Beijing and Shanghai on the list of potential targets for mass destruction.

The land of curry and call-centers is currying no favor with long time rival, China, in the opening rounds of an arms race between the world’s two most likely candidates for future superpowers.

And the war of words is on as well. In an article in today’s Global Times, China’s media mouthpiece, Beijing claims that India is “being swept up in missile delusion.” Then the rhetoric turned downright insulting peppered with some choice talking point for those looking to slam the West –who should rightfully be rejoicing India’s advance along with everyone else in the region.

India is still poor and lags behind in infrastructure construction, but its society is highly supportive of developing nuclear power and the West chooses to overlook India’s disregard of nuclear and missile control treaties. The West remains silent on the fact that India’s military spending increased by 17 percent in 2012 and the country has again become the largest weapons importer in the world.

China, which spends three times as much on defense as India and holds a much larger nuclear arsenal and supports impoverished North Korea’s nuke program, went on to warn that:

Even if it has missiles that could reach most parts of China, that does not mean it will gain anything from being arrogant during disputes with China. India should be clear that China’s nuclear power is stronger and more reliable. For the foreseeable future, India would stand no chance in an overall arms race with China.

So there. We can still kick your curry-loving, dump your dead relative’s ashes in the river, Bollywood lovin’ asses if we wanted to.

The Star of the Show

The focus of all this heated badgering from Beijing, and what historians will someday refer to as a “pivot point,” is India’s new Agni V missile. The Agni, which is the Hindi word for ‘fire,’ has a range of over 5,000 kilometers, allowing it to travel as far as Beijing and Shanghai. An earlier version of the Agni series launched last year had a range of up to 3,500 kilometers, falling well short of Tiananmen Square and The Bund.

Having this sway over the Chinese seat of power is great news, says Bharat Karnad, a security expert at the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank. “India has finally reached deterrence parity with China.”

Indeed, this is great news. For the simple reason that someone has to keep China from dominating Asia and India is the best candidate to do it.

Quite frankly, if you buy Beijing’s consistent talk of a “peaceful rise,” then you yourself are showing symptoms of delusion.

The peaceful riser that is China is on front page news today in no less than four regional disputes for harassing and bullying its smaller neighbors from the Philippines, and Vietnam to South Korea and Japan.

Add to that Taiwan, the Uighur state, its own people and well… you get the point.

India reaching offensive strategic parity in the region is essential for keeping China in check from becoming a regional hegemon and exerting too much power over her weaker neighbors.

By their very nature, great powers such as China seek regional hegemony and when they get it they inevitably put the hammer on their neighbors –be it the Balkans or south of Texas. Having India as an equalizer is the optimal solution and a welcome relief for local regional powers in South and East Asia.

While the rise of India takes pressure off of regional powers, this also bodes well for the Americans who want to keep an emergent China in check as well.

The US Navy and Air Force could pester Chinese coastal areas for months on end, but China feels little need to worry about a full scale American land invasion (which is logistically impossible) or a nuclear strike which it could easily return.

In other words, there is no one else on the planet to check Chinese power and deter them from doing what they will in the region. The Russians have too many problems of their own and can’t afford it anyway, Europe can’t even get their shit well enough together to handle Libya without U.S. help and Japan (which could check China) has its hands constitutionally tied by Article 9.

To political junkies and military strategists this inevitable India-China escalation comes as no surprise, but it is now beginning to actually take shape. Look for more of this tit-for-tat military buildup between China and India in the coming years as they both seek to re-establish regional influence that has been absent in both countries for the past 500 years.

And from here on out, when you hear people on the street discussing “Chinese or Indian” it won’t just be about where to grab dinner anymore.

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The New Asia Order

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I don’t know who is running the PR department for the Chinese government, but they really need to work on the message. Rather than pointing out all of the good things China has done for Tibet, the state-run media continues to attack the Dalai Lama publicly, which will win them no friends.

Today they took it to another level.

He always plays tricks under the cover of doing good for Tibetans. It is doubtable that the Dalai Lama would speak on the behalf of Tibetans as he is sponsored by the US and his relatives work for Central Intelligence Agency.

Yah, that makes sense. What with all those natural resources and sunny beaches in Tibet, I am sure the American government is allotting resources in that political arena with Central Intelligence Agency.

For all its lashing out at the Dalai Lama through their piss-poor public relations office, China does deserve some credit for the state of contemporary Tibet and that is the case they should be making to the world. They’ve actually done a lot of good things there and while overall the Chinese government is repressive to freedom in ALL of China, they have given the Tibetans a better life than they had before.

The Tibetans are FAR better off under Chinese rule than they were under the rule of the Dalai Lama and his ilk, where the population lived in a system of serfdom.

They want self-determination; fair enough. But that seems to be the only story about Tibet that is ever told. The other story is that, for China’s many blunders in the mountainous region, it has erected a booming economy there. Looking at growth, standard of living, infrastructure, and GDP, one thing is clear: China has been good for Tibet.

Since 2001 the Chinese government has invested $45 billion in the region, building schools and infrastructure including a train directly to Beijing. Tibet has averaged double digit growth for the past nine years and seen the price of goods drop drastically.

Granted, the Tibetans had no say in the “deal” that was forced upon them by China. A deal that basically amounts to the government offering Tibetans the same astronomical rise in living standards experienced in the rest of the country as long as they relinquish the right to free worship and free speech.

Damned if you don’t, less damned if you do.

The fact that rural Tibet’s average income has reached $525 a month and is expected to be on par with the rest of China by 2020 is pretty impressive. Would they have been better off left alone under monk-rule? Most likely, not.

“I was amazed at the amount of money actually being spent in these villages,” said Melvyn Goldstein, co-director of the Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University. Through extensive rural fieldwork in the TAR, Goldstein found that “health-insurance plans are getting better, bank loans are now more accessible, schooling is free for primary school and middle school, and access to electricity and water is improving.”

Should the Dalai Lama be allowed to return to Tibet? Yes. Should he be allowed to rule? Of course not, he sucked at it before and the system was far more autocratic than the one currently in place.

When China started garnering more wealth, it treated Tibet to the same benefits it did the rest of the country; and in doing so it cleaned up the mess that the Dalai Lama-led government left behind.

Activists can worry about getting the Tibetans free speech and freedom of religious expression later. Right now, they are far better off than they were prior to China giving them money, jobs and longer lifespans.

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GENEVA, Switzerland — South Korea has long argued that the North Korean defectors should be treated as refugees and not be returned to North Korea where they often face severe punishment and even death. China, on the other hand, does not agree.

The Chinese government, which has repatriated large numbers of defectors over the years, claims they do so because those that cross are entering China for economic reasons and do not merit protection as ‘refugees.’

In effect, China is either in complete denial that repatriated North Koreans are exposed to extreme punitive actions upon their return, or simply place no value on the lives of those they send back across their border.

In response to China recently returning 31 North Koreans, four South Korean lawmakers waited outside a UN meeting in Geneva on Tuesday to have their say not with Chinese diplomats, but with those from North Korea. And the exchange didn’t take place on the chamber floors, but outside in the halls.

The South Korean legislators pushed towards the NK diplomat chanting slogans urging both sides to stop repatriation, which South Korea and most of the world believes is a breach of international obligations.

“Repatriation of North Korean defectors is not just a matter concerning Korean people, but it’s a matter of infringement of universal human values,” said Rep. Kim Hyung-oh, a former parliamentary speaker who led the delegation. “It is regrettable that Chinese authorities have not changed their attitude even though they know what kind of situations North Korean defectors could face when they are sent back to the North.”

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that South Korea was “foolish” to bring up the issue of sending back defectors on the international stage at the UN. China offered no comment on the altercation.

While Mormal-Vanian has a point that civil discourse is the ideal, sometimes you’ve just gotta step up. Who can blame the four SK lawmakers for their behavior when considering the circumstances?

At a recent protest in Seoul, a defector who was caught by China and sent back, but eventually made it into South Korea, told media covering the demonstration: “In North Korea, I was forced into labor, and I can’t even begin to describe how harsh it was,” the defector said, her voice breaking. “When I recall the memory of repatriation, I get chills down my spine. The detainees’ crime is only their desperate hunger and wishes to be reunited with their family.”